PSEA president: Public school funding increase is not optional

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Chris Lilienthal (717) 255-7134
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HARRISBURG, PA (Feb. 28, 2024) – As the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee held its FY 2024-25 budget hearing with the state Department of Education today, PSEA President Aaron Chapin urged lawmakers to make fixing Pennsylvania’s unconstitutionally broken public school funding system their top legislative priority.

“Legislators need to remember that addressing the unconstitutional inequities in our public school funding system is not optional,” Chapin said. “It is required by our state constitution. The Commonwealth Court made that clear a year ago in its decision in the school funding case.

“Gov. Shapiro’s budget proposal is a solid beginning to a multiyear effort that will finally make our public school funding system fair, equitable, and constitutional,” Chapin added. “Pennsylvania’s students have waited decades for policymakers to take bold action to address the urgent funding needs in their schools. Now is the time to get this done.

“We can’t let billions of the taxpayers’ dollars sit in a bank account in Harrisburg when our constitution requires a significant public school funding increase so that every public school student has an equal opportunity to learn and succeed.

“Pennsylvania has a multibillion dollar budget surplus. Even after making the investments we need to fully fund our public schools, the commonwealth will still have billions in reserve. There is no political excuse for inaction, no fiscal reason to spend less than the governor proposed, and no legal rationale for delay.

“Our students can’t afford to wait.”

Chapin is a Stroudsburg Area middle school teacher and president of PSEA. An affiliate of the National Education Association, PSEA represents about 177,000 active and retired educators and school employees, aspiring educators, higher education staff, and health care workers in Pennsylvania.